Chapter Eight: The Betrayed

Kieran

As soon as the gong goes, Finnegan and I dive in to the water, propelling ourselves forward. We immediately gain a lead, and looking back I see that the majority of the Tributes are still stranded on their plates, including the Careers. But Katarana and Augustus are about a few minutes behind us. They only know how to dog paddle. I snort.

After a few more strokes, we reach the Cornucopia. We check back to see Katarana and Augustus helping a drowning Velvet, while Pillow is attempting to swim out to us. She's actually a pretty good swimmer, and will be at the Cornucopia in about a minute.

"Quick," I say to Finnegan. "We'll both grab a backpack and two weapons, or... no, I'll grab the trident and you grab the knife and the spear. Okay?"

Finnegan nods, and we begin to work. I quickly check the backpacks and choose the best-stocked one. It has meat, fruit, water, a lot of rope, a tent and a sleeping bag. Perfect. Then, I run over to the trident and grab it. "Finne, let's go," I say when he's ready. Just as we dive off, Pillow clambers up the island. We have a good distance, but Pillow isn't giving up. She grabs numerous rocks and starts tossing them at us with brute force. One barely misses my face.

"We have to swim faster," Finne pants. I nod.

"To the island?" I ask.

"To the island," he replies.

It's difficult swimming with all of our weapons and items, but we manage. We heave ourselves onto the island, panting. The islands not very big; maybe a half-mile wide and long. There's a huge tree that I can easily scale, and I know it'll have a great view of the Cornucopia battle. If the tributes aren't battling on the Cornucopia, they're battling by the side of the plates, where the land meets the forest.

"Alright, I think we should make camp up in that huge tree," I point up to the large tree. "Look, the branches are wide enough for us to walk on, and we can easily camp up there without being spotted, even if the Careers try and get us."

Finnegan nods. "That'll be best. Can you climb up and scout it out? Like, tell me what's going on down there? I'll be organizing our stuff and keeping watch by the shore, just in case they try and chase us."

"Okay," I say. I grab my rope and begin to scale the tree. It's a huge oak, with small branches at the bottom (that probably won't support Finnegan's weight, but I can easily levy him up with a rope) and large, wide branches at the top. It's an easy tree to climb, but I make the mistake to look down. I'm at a dizzying height. Height has always been my biggest weakness. But I push on. You're in the Hunger Games, Kieran, I thought. Concentrate. That brings me back, and I continue to climb the tree until I reach the top. There, I tie my rope around the tree and to my waist, just in case I fall.

The view from the tree is staggering. The tree's well concealed, so I know the tributes won't be able to see me watching them. I watch the scene in horror. Somehow, some kids have reached the Cornucopia and are being slaughtered by the tributes. At the shore, kids are grabbing anything they can find - sticks, rocks, their own hands and feet - and using them as weapons to kill each other. I do a quick headcount, about ten kids are dead right now.

"How's it?" Finnegan asks. I look down, and immediately regret it. Finnegan's stories below me, and I can feel my stomach churning. Don't let go, Kieran. I tell myself. Whatever you do, don't let go... you'll break your neck. Gulping, I deliver Finnegan the news.

"Well, most tributes are dead. The ones from Seven are completely destroying kids on the shore - oh, there goes District 9 female..." I squint my eyes. "Now about twelve are dead. Everyone fighting at the Cornucopia and the shore is dead, except the Sevens and the Careers. Most kids ran into the woods without fighting..."

I gasp. The Careers have collected all of the supplies and are swimming over to Odysseus and Helena, who are at the shore, smirking. I can see them pointing towards us, but the Careers shrug and motion towards the woods. Ah, so they want to save us for last because they know we have an incredible advantage...

"What?" Finnegan asks, hearing my gasp.

"You won't believe it," I say sourly. "Seven and the Careers have teamed up. They're hiking towards the woods where the other tributes are."

"Not us?" Finnegan wonders. He sounds surprised, and frankly, I am, too. I would think that Finne and I would be the Careers first target.

"No," I reply. "I think they're flushing all of the other tributes out and saving us for last. They'll probably surround the island or something."

Finnegan glances around nervously. "Alright then, they already know we're here... so what's the harm in starting a fire? I doubt they can swim too fast."

"There's no threat," I answer. "We're probably better off starting a fire in the daylight. Shall we fish?"

"We shall," Finnegan answers, smirking. "Actually... how about I fish, and you keep watch up there." I start to protest, but he cuts me off. "No, Kieran. You also have to find a tree with camping space. We can't sleep on the ground, we'll be way to easy to target."

I bite my lip in thought. He's right, the Careers will sneak up on us and kill us, if given the chance. But aren't they busy hunting the other tributes that escaped into the forest? Or is that just a decoy? What if they pretend to go pick off the weaklings, but secretly slip over to our island? It isn't that far of a swim, anyway. And judging by their average swimming skills, we'd probably get a moment's notice if we did hear them on the ground. "Okay," I agree. The trees are thick up here, so it'll be easy for me to hop from tree to tree. "Finne, fish below me so I can keep an eye on you while looking for a suitable tree."

"Sounds good," Finne calls up. He pulls out his spear and backpack. Looking through his pack, he spots a rope. I watch his face light up as he knots the rope around his wrist and the spear. This way, when he throws the spear, he won't have to dive in to get it. I leave him to fish and begin to scan for trees with large branches on top, and fairly brittle on the bottom. I know that's impossible, but I look. I know the Careers are way too heavy to climb up the thin branched trees, but what about Helena and Odysseus? They've been working with trees their whole life, so surely they know how to climb them...

I ignore this and come up with another plan. I find a tree with thick branches at the top, and decent branches at the bottom. I make the camp fairly high up, so it'll be near to impossible for any of the Careers to climb up. Even Odysseus and Helena look too big to climb up the branches.

"Hey, Finne," I call, making my way back to his fishing spot. He doesn't answer right away, which freaks me out. I quickly hop from branch to branch, and arrive right above where he was fishing. There's a pile of fish next to where he was supposed to be fishing, but where's Finne? I see a cloud of blood in the water, but disregard it as fish blood. The blood is too small and spaced out to be human.

"Finne," I yell nervously. Has someone snuck up on us already?

"Here, Kieran," the response calls back. I see Finne's figure below me, with his pack. "Sorry, I was just getting this and scouting out the island. It's too thick on the bottom for my liking. We could easily be found. Have you found anything?"

"Yeah," I say. "But you may not be able to climb it. Here, bring the supplies and follow me,"

We make our way through a couple of trees, to where the large tree is. I have Finne toss me up the supplies, and store them in a hollow by a crook of branches that will fit both of us. With the help of his spear, Finne makes it up the tree. He's skinny enough to be good at climbing trees, he just doesn't have the experience.

He glances up. The sky is a dark cream, signaling dusk. His eyes look nervous. Right as he opens up his mouth to say something, two cannons fire, one after the other. We both watch the helicopter retrieve the bodies, both from the forest. It's too far away to make out who they belong to, but I'm pretty sure I see a flash of blonde hair as the helicopter flies overhead.

"You know how many?" I ask him. I realize that I haven't been paying close attention to the deaths or cannon fires as of late. But I know Finne has, because he's the type that would pay attention to that sort of thing, unlike myself.

"Yeah. About thirteen," He answers. I hold back a gasp. Thirteen? That's the most there's been in years. The highest number I remember on the first afternoon is about twelve. Thirteen kids... gone in a few hours, just like that. I close my eyes and shake my head. Such a terrible, terrible loss of life. And innocence. Innocence... I suppose none of us have that anymore. We haven't the moment we walked into the arena. Innocence is something children are referred to. Everyone in this arena, they're all innocent, right? Just a bunch of innocent kids stuffed into an arena for the entertainment of adults. Sick, in my opinion.

"S'alright, we're still here," Finne smiles at me. "And look, we have food. Fish. Like home, right?"

I look at him sadly. "Yeah, like home. Too bad one of us will be returning home, if we're lucky."

He looks at me, confused and hurt. "Don't think about that," he pleads. "Don't think about the future, for now, think of the present. Look, we're still here. We're still living. Isn't that something to be proud of? We survived the first day," Oh Finnegan Hughes, always the optimist. But doesn't he realize that we only have about four precious days together until one - or both - of us is killed off? I don't know how this sudden realization came to me, it's been looming over my head all along, but I guess I just started to realize it.

Finnegan peers at me, questioning. "You've been really quiet ever since we've come in the Games. Like, not your usual self."

I shrug. "I've just realized stuff, I guess," I say.

"Like what?" asks Finne.

"The truth. About these Games. What they mean to everyone, what they mean to us, the tributes. To everyone, we're just another tribute, you know?" I ask. I immediately regret my words. The Capitol definitely has the cameras trained on me, and I'm probably going to regret every word I said. Unless I turn it around...

"What do you mean 'another tribute'?" asks Finne.

"I want to stand out," I say. "Like, I want to be remembered for something. I don't want to have a crappy death," It's not what I really mean, but I think Finne senses what I'm trying to do.

"Oh, yeah," he says. The sky is starting to darken now. Finnegan begins cutting up the fish. We will eat it raw, because making a fire right now's too risky. We don't want to remind the other tributes where we are.

"Go scout who's dead, will you?" asks Finnegan. I nod, and begin to scale up the tree. Just as I reach the thinnest branches, the Panem anthem plays and the Capitol seal pops up. Then, a series of faces shown in the air with their District name and their name underneath their face.

It goes in order by District, boy to girl. I'm not surprised when I see Cabla's face shown first. I feel a pang in my heart for Protonus, because I wonder how he'll get on. No, don't think about that. I tell myself. They're your enemies now. Lenno and Jasmyn from Five are shown, followed by the two tributes from Six, Daniel and Ame. No faces from Seven. Felicity from Eight, but no Tanner. A girl named Linda who was an expert with edible plants from Nine. Both from District Ten, Eleven, Twelve. I'm surprised that Silvia, the girl from Twelve, died. Apparently she was able with an axe.

I report the deaths back to Finne, who nods. We feast on raw fish and fall asleep.

Another day of hell is waiting for me tomorrow.


Quick Index -

** Warning! Contains spoilers! **

Living:

Velvet - District 1
Pillow - District 1
Augustus - District 2
Katarana - District 2
Protonus - District 3
Kieran - District 4
Finnegan - District 4
Odysseus - District 7
Helena - District 7
Tanner - District 8
Wes - District 9

Deaths:

Cabla - District 3
Lenno - District 5
Jasmyn - District 5
Daniel - District 6
Ame - District 6
Felicity - District 8
Linda - District 9
Donald - District 10
Wendy - District 10
Harvey - District 11
Whitney - District 11
Cole - District 12
Silvia - District 12

Known Alliances:

Velvet, Pillow, Augustus, Katarana, Odysseus, Helena - "Career Pack"

Kieran, Finnegan - "The Best Friends"